Bird watching and considering a better camera.

When Mum and Dad decided to come for the weekend I told them to bring their binoculars as there are lots of birds to see in the trees on my property and the surrounding properties, in the air over the bluff and over the lake.

I am regularly seeing bald Eagles and Herons flying back and forth. Dad and I saw a Merlin skimming past my Muskoka chairs one morning

Saturday afternoon this Mourning Dove was sitting on the lake side lawn. We realized after watching her for a while that she was sitting on a chick. We watched her feed it and it seemed really young to be out of the nest. Eating dinner, I looked out at the lawn and she wasn't there but a large raptor was. I grabbed my camera but it flew before I got a chance to take a picture.

Dad's suggestion was that it was a Coopers Hawk. We looked at the bird books and web sites but they didn't really fit what we had seen. Dad mentioned a Peregrine Falcon but said he thought they were rare here. We looked them up, they fit what we had seen and Dad found that there had been a Peregrine Falcon sighting recently, just down the lake at Nanticoke. I believe I had a Peregrine Falcon on my back lawn (I think he had a baby Mourning Dove for dinner)

Sunday sunset, looking WSW.

And WNW

Nic and my dinner

on the deck.

While Nicola went in to get dessert this Bald Eagle cruised by.

I had the time to put my camera on "sport mode",

which gives me a much faster shutter speed, as he dipped down towards the lake

and grabbed a fish,

making me think that I would  like a better camera, to get really clear shots of activity like this.